Penn State's Ed Ruth of Susquehanna Twp. was accorded the No. 1 pre-seed at 184 pounds for the Big Ten wrestling championships this weekend at Illinois. Official pairings will be released on Friday. (CHRIS KNIGHT, The Patriot-News)

Preliminary seeding for this weekend’s Big Ten Wrestling Championships at Illinois was announced on Monday and Penn State’s 10 wrestlers are seeded among the top seven at each weight.

The Nittany Lions earned three No. 1 seeds in David Taylor at 165, Ed Ruth at 184 and Quentin Wright at 197. Nico Megaludis is slotted second at 125 pounds.

Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio State each were accorded two top seeds and Michigan’s Eric Grajales at 149 received the other.

The pre-seeds are voted on by coaches; the number of seeded wrestlers at each weight class varies because of the number of NCAA qualifier allocations.

Eight champions from 2012 return to defend their titles and six of those earned No. 1 seeds.

Along with Ruth, of Susquehanna Twp., three other former midstate wrestlers were seeded. Penn State’s Jordan Conaway of New Oxford was pre-seeded fourth at 133 based on his 6-2 record in the Big Ten matches this season.

Iowa’s Mike Evans of Cumberland Valley/Blair Academy was second at 174 and Illinois’ Tony Dallago of Central Dauphin was sixth at 184.